ome my sorrow."

Here she broke down and wept.

"I think we had best take her back to her room," said Lady Belgrade,
rising.

Mr. Kage locked up the documents in the japanned box, put the key in his
pocket-book, and consigned the box to the care of his clerk.

Lady Belgrade dismissed the assembled servants to their several duties,
and then, assisted by Lord Arondelle, led the bereaved and suffering girl
from the room.

The lawyer and his clerk, who were to dine and sleep at the castle, were
left alone.

The lawyer rang and asked for a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses,
and lighted his cigar, to pass away the time until the dinner hour.

The next morning Mr. Kage and his clerk went back to London.

It now became an anxious question, whether the marriage of the young Duke
of Hereward and the heiress of Lone should proceed according to her
father's wishes.

Mr. Kage, the family attorney, urged it: Dr. McWilliams, the family
physician, urged it: above all the expectant bridegroom, the Duke of
Hereward; only the bride-elect, Salome, and her chaperon, Lady Belgrade,
objected to it.

Salome, ill and nervous from the severe shock she had received, could
decide upon nothing hastily and pleaded for a short delay.

Lady Belgrade argued etiquette and conventionalities--the impropriety of
the daughter's marriage so soon after the father's murder.

Meanwhile the summer had merged into early autumn; the season of the
Highlands was over, and the cold Scotch mists were driving summer
visitors to the South coast, or to the Continent.

The climate was telling heavily upon the delicate organization of Salome
Levison. She contracted a serious cough.

Then the family physician, (so to speak,) "put down his foot" with
professional authority so stern as not to be contested or withstood.

"This is a question of life or death, my lady," he said to the
dowager--"a question of life and death, ye mind! And not of
conventionality and etiquette! Let conventionality and etiquette go to
the D., from whom they first came. This girl must die, or she must marry
immediately, and go off with her husband to the islands of the Grecian
Archipelago. That is all that can save her. And as for you, my laird
duke," continued the honest Scotch doctor, breaking into dialect as he
always did whenever he forgot himself under strong excitement, "as for
you, me laird duke, if ye dinna overcome the lassie's scruples, and marry
her out of hand, the